Frackingand climate breakdown

What is fracking?

Shale rock has to be fractured to get to the gas or oil – this is known as hydraulic fracturing or fracking for short. A mixture of water, sand and chemicals is pumped down the well at very high pressure. This fractures the rock and when the pressure is released, the gas or oil flows back up the well.

You can be in favour of fixing the climate. Or you can be in favour of exploiting shale gas. But you can’t be in favour of both at the same time.

John Ashton, former envoy for climate change at the UK Foreign Office

Fracking and global warming

Fracking is a process to extract shale gas or shale oil. Both are fossil fuels that emit greenhouse gases when burnt, contributing to climate breakdown.

Here you can find out about the campaign to stop fracking – and what you can do about it. Together we can be a powerful force to protect our climate by keeping coal, oil and gas in the ground.

Fracking earthquakes explained

Fracking in the UK has triggered many small earthquakes.

Cuadrilla fracked at Preston New Road in Lancashire over 2 months in 2018. During that time, seismologists detected 57 earthquakes.

The rules state that fracking must stop if earthquakes reach magnitude 0.5. This is a problem for the fracking industry. Cuadrilla stopped operations 5 times because it triggered earthquakes bigger than the rules allow.

Now the industry is trying to relax the rules after years of talking up the UK's so-called gold-standard fracking regulations.

John's story

"We've got enough clean energy alternatives, that will provide a whole lot more jobs than what this shale gas nonsense will ever do. The opposition is seen more across the country. I am feeling optimistic that it will be stopped once people realise that it's going to affect them, their families, their children, their environment."